As of October 2014, 21% of consumers in the US own a wearable digital device. With over $2.3 billion currently invested into digital health startups, and an expected 130 million fitness trackers and smart watches on the market by 2018, this trend shows no sign of slowing. One player in this arena is Hexoskin, a wireless biometric shirt developed by a Montreal startup of the same name. Co-founders Jean-Francois Roy and Pierre-Alexandre Fournier had a vision to provide a means of measuring precise health data in a natural, affordable and non-invasive way, through clothing. Embedded textile sensors in the shirt are capable of monitoring over 42,000 data points every minute, including metrics on cardiac, respiratory and activity data, which are relayed in real-time via Bluetooth to the cloud on iPhone, iPad, and Android smartphones.

To date, Hexoskin has been geared towards medical researchers, professional athletes and coaches to monitor performance results. Join Vitatech as we explore the potential of the Hexoskin smart shirt in a new market -- the United States’ golf industry. With over 24 million golfers nationwide and nearly 61% of golfers over the age of 50, Hexoskin’s fitness tracking technology can simultaneously monitor the cardiovascular health and golf performance of a mature population of “core” golfers. Vitatech proposes a sub-branding strategy that highlights specific design modifications in order to increase adoption within this new market, and addresses privacy and regulatory concerns that will effectively improve Hexoskin’s market success.